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Lion on a 2006 Mac mini?

SmileyDude

SmileyDude

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2002
194
61
MA
Hi everyone --

I have a pair of 2006 Mac minis that have both been upgraded to 2.0GHz C2Ds from their original 1.5GHz C1S and 1.66GHz C1D CPUs. I'm curious if anyone here has a similarly upgraded machine and has tried any of the Lion builds on it yet. I know that Apple states a C2D is required, but I'm wondering if they will still have support for the chipset that they used in the early Intel minis.

I'm hoping to get another few years out of these machines -- they have been great so far as a server and as a media machine for the bedroom. I'm certainly not ready to part with them yet :)
 
SmileyDude said:
Hi everyone --

I have a pair of 2006 Mac minis that have both been upgraded to 2.0GHz C2Ds from their original 1.5GHz C1S and 1.66GHz C1D CPUs. I'm curious if anyone here has a similarly upgraded machine and has tried any of the Lion builds on it yet. I know that Apple states a C2D is required, but I'm wondering if they will still have support for the chipset that they used in the early Intel minis.

I'm hoping to get another few years out of these machines -- they have been great so far as a server and as a media machine for the bedroom. I'm certainly not ready to part with them yet :)
Click to expand...

Do you have full 64-bit support in Snow Leopard? If so then I imagine it would install and run just fine. Just look in activity monitor.. it will say either Intel or Intel 64-bit.

If you don't have full 64-bit already then no. I would imagine that since a Core Duo is not 64-bit that any CD logic board would not be fully 64 bit capable if at all.

By the way.. there is no such thing as a C1D or Core 1 Duo. There is the Core Duo (CD) and Core 2 Duo (C2D). The terminology you're using might confuse some.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
You can install Lion on your machine, if

Code: 
ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

in the Terminal returns the "EFI64" string.
Click to expand...

Uh, my 11" MBA returns EFI32. I'm pretty sure it's gonna run Lion since that's the machine Apple shows with all of the Lion screenshots :)

EDIT: Doh! Spoke too soon -- had a terminal opened SSHd to my mini. The MBA returns EFI64, the mini EFI32.

But still, I'm pretty sure there are C2D and above machines with 32-bit EFI running around -- though I'm willing to be wrong on that point since I don't have any data to back it up. Will have to check on my wife's C2D MacBook tonight.
 
SmileyDude said:
Uh, my 11" MBA returns EFI32. I'm pretty sure it's gonna run Lion since that's the machine Apple shows with all of the Lion screenshots :)

EDIT: Doh! Spoke too soon -- had a terminal opened SSHd to my mini. The MBA returns EFI64, the mini EFI32.

But still, I'm pretty sure there are C2D and above machines with 32-bit EFI running around -- though I'm willing to be wrong on that point since I don't have any data to back it up. Will have to check on my wife's C2D MacBook tonight.
Click to expand...

You didn't answer what I asked about what activity monitor says. People ask for help and then don't answer the questions the people trying to help them need answered to provide said help.
 
zen.state said:
Do you have full 64-bit support in Snow Leopard? If so then I imagine it would install and run just fine. Just look in activity monitor.. it will say either Intel or Intel 64-bit.

If you don't have full 64-bit already then no. I would imagine that since a Core Duo is not 64-bit that any CD logic board would not be fully 64 bit capable if at all.

By the way.. there is no such thing as a C1D or Core 1 Duo. There is the Core Duo (CD) and Core 2 Duo (C2D). The terminology you're using might confuse some.
Click to expand...

On the mini running SL, I do get full 64-bit support (other than the kernel, which none of my SL machines currently run in 64-bit mode, including the quad core i5 iMac).

The CS/CD boards can run with a Merom C2D just fine -- as far as I can tell, the difference between the 2006 CS/CD mini and the 2007 C2D minis is limited to just firmware and the actual CPU. Otherwise, they are identical in all specs. If the EFI-32 vs EFI-64 bit issue is indeed a show stopper, I will be stepping up my search for a way to upgrade the firmware on these machines. Hopefully it's a possibility.
 
zen.state said:
You didn't answer what I asked about what activity monitor says. People ask for help and then don't answer the questions the people trying to help them need answered to provide said help.
Click to expand...

That's because I was replying to the other poster -- your answer follows this one.
 
I would say you're good to go for Lion. Pretty sure the Merom was the first C2D but any C2D can run Lion.
 
SmileyDude said:
That's what I'm hoping for -- hopefully just a few more months and I'll know for sure. :D
Click to expand...

This article doesn't really talk about Lion but it mentions that many 64-bit capable Macs have a 32-bit EFI. Many 64-bit Macs also run the 32-bit kernel by default since the only advantage to the kernel being 64-bit is it can see more than 32GB RAM which no Mac can exceed anyway. My C2D for example has a 32-bit EFI and runs a 32-bit kernel but all the default apps are 64-bit. For comparison of app performance the 64-bit certainly helps. I have both the 32- and 64 bit versions of geekbench.. the 32 bit scores 2663 and the 64-bit 3082.
 
Last edited:
zen.state said:
My C2D for example has a 32-bit EFI and runs a 32-bit kernel but all the default apps are 64-bit.
Click to expand...

What do you mean with "default apps"? iTunes and a few other "default apps" are still 32-Bit apps. We talk about the Lion kernel (kernel space), not about apps (user space). A 64-Bit EFI requires the same Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) as the appropriate OS kernel, AFAIK.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
AFAIK.
Click to expand...

Then I guess you don't know. When I say default apps I mean everything that installs with 10.6. Many 3rd party apps I use are also fully 64-bit and run as such. A 64-bit computer doesn't mean 64-bit kernel.

Maybe actually read the article I linked to..
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
A 64-Bit EFI requires the same Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) as the appropriate OS kernel, AFAIK.
Click to expand...

This is definitely not the case -- my 2009 i5 iMac has a 64-bit EFI, runs a 32-bit kernel, while most of the user apps are 64-bit. It also has 8GB of RAM, which also shows that a 64-bit kernel is not a requirement to access more than 4GB of RAM.

I don't know if it's a requirement or not, but it does look like the only machines that can boot a 64-bit kernel also have 64-bit EFI, but that doesn't effect having more than 4GB of RAM or running 64-bit apps.
 
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